140 Character Conference: New York

Twitter is dominating the news about social media these days. There is no doubt that bloggers have long known that the microblogging service can deepen online relationships, promote your blog, provide excellent entertainment during awards shows and create smart business opportunities (listen to Amy Lupold Bair’s podcast to hear how she’s done it). But marketers and advertisers are now discovering that Twitter is a hot commodity, causing its popularity to explode.

The 140 Character Conference is in its second year – it’s an event that celebrates real time media and “Explores the State of Now.”

Organizer Jeff Pulver is most famous for his innovative work in Voice over IP technology, and was the co-founder of Vonage and is very active in the legal issues surrounding VoIP technology. Jeff’s “Pulver Order” was adopted in 2004 by the FCC, and was the very first FCC ruling about internet protocol communications. 

The conference is unlike most social media conferences in that all the panels and speakers happen in the same room, for extremely Twitter-like periods of time. Individual speakers get ten minutes, max, while multiple-person panels get 15 to 20 minutes. There are few breaks (there are even features during the lunch break), and both days run from 8am until after 7pm.

Favorite moments from day one included high school principal Chris Lehmann discussing the amazingly innovative ways he’s incorporated social media into his school, Alon Nir discussing his fascinating “tweet your prayers” program at The Kotel where folks print, roll, and put prayers on Israel’s Western Wall, and listening to Ann Curry of NBC’s Today Show. (And thanks @lynnetteradio for the impromptu history lesson on the conference.)

Mom bloggers were represented ably by Jessica Gottlieb, who emphasized the importance of relationship building and reminded the audience, “Not everyone’s opinions matter.”

Day two was slightly less frantic, with a more relaxed feel and included some excellent moments too, particularly a smart and compelling presentation from a group of 8th graders and their performance of a skit about Animal Farm, which brought down the house.

Parent bloggers were represented in the late afternoon by Adam Cohen of Dada Rocks, Frederick of New York Dad, Jyl Johnson Pattee of Mom It Forward, and Laura Deutsch of BabyBites.

{Cecily attended the conference as a correspondent of ShePosts.com. If you want to be a contributor – head over to our “write for us” section.}